


Ages and Ages Hence

by Corinna



Category: Murphy Brown (TV), Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Bisexuality, Crack, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Episode: s02e12 Epiphany, F/M, Journalism, M/M, National Zoo, Pandas, Washington D.C.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-24
Updated: 2006-01-24
Packaged: 2017-12-07 08:33:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/746474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corinna/pseuds/Corinna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I guess that flight school thing stuck, huh?" </p><p>Spoilers through SGA 2x12 ("Epiphany") and, yes, Murphy Brown, 10x8 ("From Here to Jerusalem")</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ages and Ages Hence

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [ Livia](http://archiveofourown.org/users/liviapenn) and [Yahtzee](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Yahtzee) for some late-night word-wrangling. Please don't blame them for any of the following.

“How long has it been since you had a real steak?” General O’Neill asked as they walked out of the Pentagon. Too long, they’d had to admit, and then there was nothing for it but to go to Mullaney’s in Georgetown. “Save the world, your country owes you a good steak dinner,” O’Neill said.

John felt itchy and uncomfortable in his dress blues, and Rodney didn’t look much happier in his suit and tie, but he’d promised Elizabeth they’d play nice on this trip, so escaping back to the hotel wasn’t an option. At least Mullaney’s had a bar where they could wait for their table - a cool dark room with a long wooden bar and a bartender so old he might’ve come with the fixtures. He’d missed beer at lot more than he’d missed T-bones, and halfway through his second Sam Adams, he could feel his back start to unclench.

“No, sir, the Dart flies completely on instruments.”

“That doesn’t sound like fun,” O’Neill said.

“Fun wasn’t exactly on the agenda,” Rodney muttered. “Not dying was a much higher priority.”

“It’s a pretty powerful ship,” John allowed. “It might be fun to try under a better set of circumstances.”

“It can fly,” said Rodney. “Of course Sheppard liked it.”

“John?”

The room went fuzzy, and John could swear he felt his heart stop and then stutter back into action. That voice. The surprised look on O’Neill’s face. It couldn’t be. 

“John  _Sheppard_?”

He turned slowly, not quite believing what was happening. “Murphy?”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Murphy Brown. “I thought I recognized your voice. It took me a minute, though.”

“It’s been a long time,” John managed. 

“I’ll say.” She took hold of his upper arms and, awkwardly, they hugged. “Ow. Medals. I guess that flight school thing stuck, huh?”

“Pretty much.” He could practically feel Rodney’s eyes boring holes through the back of his skull, so he braced himself and made introductions. “General Jack O’Neill, Dr. Rodney McKay, Murphy Brown. Murphy and I knew each other when I lived in DC for a while after college.”

Rodney’s eyebrows shot up at that, but remarkably, he said nothing.

“It’s a real pleasure, Ms. Brown,” O’Neill said. Turning to John, he added, “You’re a multi-faceted guy, Sheppard.”

“I try, sir,” John said weakly.

“So, how did the two of you meet?” Rodney asked. He moved just a little too close to John and placed a territorial hand on his arm. The general ostentatiously looked away.

Murphy’s smile turned polite and unconvincing. “School trip, actually.”

“I was working at the Children’s Museum. Murphy was chaperoning her son’s class.” John explained. He took half a step towards the bar, shaking Rodney off. “Hey, how is Avery? He’s got to be ready for college by now.”

“Ready? Try a junior at Yale.” She waved to a tall man at the end of the bar. “Avery!”

Nothing, not the grey when he grew out a beard or the full minute he’d lost off his 5K since he passed 35, nothing had ever made John feel quite as old as the sight of the young man lumbering over to them, with his blond hair flopping over his eyes and his skinny-hipped jeans uncomfortably, disconcertingly hot. John thought of the wide-eyed boy he’d known and felt like a perv.

“Hey, Mom. I was wondering when you’d get here.” Avery’s voice was an amused rumble, and he leaned down to kiss Murphy’s cheek. 

“Don’t blame me! Once Joe Wilson gets talking, you can’t shut him up. Avery, do you remember John Sheppard?”

“Not really,” Avery admitted, shaking John’s proffered hand. The boy had a full inch on him, at least: it was like adding insult to injury. “But I’ve heard the stories.”

“Stories?” Murphy asked.

“Sure. Corky still calls him your ‘cancer-year boytoy.’” Avery seemed to realize who he was talking to a moment too late; he managed a graceful, embarrassed shrug. “Sorry, man.”

Behind them, Rodney was having some sort of coughing fit.

“O’Neill? Party of three?” called the hostess.

“Oh, good,” John said. 

 

* * *

 

They had most of the day to spend in DC before they had to fly back to Cheyenne Mountain to head home. John wanted to see the zoo, and Rodney wanted to go to a condensed-matter physics lecture at GWU, so after breakfast in the hotel restaurant, they went their separate ways. John wished he’d been more surprised to see Murphy waiting for him in the lobby, perfectly turned out in tweeds and a bright green scarf. But he’d gone out with her for two months and watched her on TV most of his life, and he knew a little something about her methods.

“I have some very important panda-watching to do,” he informed her.

“Fine by me. Need a lift?”

She was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, even now, and when her eyes met his with a challenging glint, he couldn’t say no. Someday, he thought as he buckled himself into the passenger seat of her Mini Cooper,  _someday_ , he was really going to have to figure out where he’d picked up this attraction to brilliant blue-eyed loudmouths.

“It’s very interesting,” Murphy told him as she merged across two lanes onto the Beltway. “Jack O’Neill’s service records are code-word classified. As are yours, in case you don’t know. But doctorates are public record. So I have to wonder what sort of highly classified work a couple of Air Force officers are doing with an experimental astrophysicist.”

“The ‘code-word classified’ part still not much of a deterrent, huh?”

“Not really. What’s going on at Cheyenne Mountain, John?”

“Look,” he tried, “I don’t work with Rodney. We’re friends.”

“An Air Force officer takes his boyfriend to dinner with a general? Come on, John, I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck yesterday.”

“Is that what this is about?” he asked. 

The traffic was moving pretty well, and Murphy had to keep her eyes on the road. She had a good poker face, but her shoulders were tense, and her hands were tight on the wheel. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.

When they were finally at the zoo, watching the panda enclosure, she asked, “Did you know? Then?”

“Know?” John asked, confused. The baby panda had been trying to climb over a log, and he’d been transfixed, watching the little guy’s legs scramble against the bark. 

“That you’re  _gay_.”

It seemed like everyone within earshot turned to stare at them. One man pulled his girlfriend closer to his chest. John just rolled his eyes.

“Little louder, Murph; the Pentagon’s upwind from here.”

“Hah hah. Did you?” 

John took a deep breath. “I’ve known that I’m bi since I was seventeen. OK?”

She glared and folded her arms across her chest. “And you didn’t think that was worth mentioning when you were sleeping with me?”

He shrugged. “Not really, no.”

“Well, why the hell not?”

He gently pulled her hands into his, and gave her his best native-charmer smile. “It was a fling, Murphy. A nice little fling. For both of us.”

She didn’t look as mollified as he’d hoped she would. “It was a much more impressive fling when I thought I’d slept with a straight 23 year-old boy.”

“Yeah, well, your son called me a boytoy in front of a general. That’s got to make us partly even.” She smiled a little at that, but unconvincingly. “Look. I could tell you how important your  _FYI_ broadcasts were to my teen years, but I think that would just creep us both out. Trust me, when I was with you, I wanted to be with you, one hundred percent. OK?”

The smile he got for that was closer to the ones he remembered. On impulse, he leaned in and kissed her, close-lipped and almost chaste. When he pulled back, there were spots of pink on her cheeks and her eyes were bright. 

“So,” she said, “about your current assignment.”

“No,” he said. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and drew her close as they turned back to watch the pandas.

“You can give me a hint. I’ll protect your identity.”

“No hints.”

“How about this: I’ll tell you what I think it is, and if I’m wrong, you just cough.”

“Murphy!”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Screencaps of the 1997 _Murphy Brown_ episode in question, guest-starring Joe Flanigan[, are available on the interwebs](http://joeflaniganfan.com/2013/03/14/screen-caps-murphy-brown-1997/). And yes, the character really does go off to flight school.


End file.
